Critical Power Blog

Natural disaster can strike at any time, and if one is unprepared for a power outage, the impact of downtime is huge.

If you have any question, consider this sampling of natural disaster events that occurred worldwide during January 2015, according to Impact Forecasting’s latest edition of its monthly Global Catastrophe Recap report:

Western Europe were struck by a series of four powerful windstorms over a seven-day span during January. Windstorms Elon, Felix, Gunter, and Hermann impacted Ireland, the United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, Germany, and Poland, causing tens of thousands of power outages, and severe disruption to travel and transport. Economic and insured losses were expected to reach hundreds of millions of euros.

Two separate winter weather events impacted northeastern parts of the United States during the month, including one of the strongest Nor’easters in history that brought record snowfall to parts of the Northeast. In Massachusetts, some locations reported up to 36.0 inches (91.4 centimeters) of snow, while major cities in the region were brought to a virtual standstill as transit systems were closed. Total economic damage and losses (including business interruption) were minimally estimated at USD500 million.

Severe weather in Oman damaged homes, infrastructure and the electrical grid. Total economic damages were listed at USD221 million, with insured losses to vehicles at USD26 million.